After my experience this Spring semester, I would advise that if you intend to take an intro to chemistry or chem 1 level class that you familiarize yourself with the following:
I gave up some easy points one exams simply because I could not remember what the requested polyatomic ion was. Take the screenshot from one of my exams as an example, I did all the work exactly like this except in my case I spelled out ammonium instead of using (NH4) which as a +1 charge. Not knowing the components of the polyatomic ion or it’s charge prevents you from balancing the equation properly. (click here for a tutorial on balancing equations)
3. STANDARD to METRIC CONVERSIONS!!!! (look through my old posts on the subject)
I just completed the Spring semester and have one week of rest until Summer starts. I will be taking an accelerated Chem I/II w/lab sequence. This will cram 32 weeks of instruction (2 semesters) into 9 weeks of Summer. I will be attending class/lab Mon-Fri from 7 to 3 and will be working quite hard to fit my training schedule around school.
The Intro to Chemistry class I just completed this Spring was very disappointing, I decided to withdraw from UCSD for the Spring quarter and take equivalent classes at a local community college. Unfortunately for me I never took chemistry in High School, which was more than 7 years ago, so I had to take an intro class as a prerequisite to Chem 1 & 2. The class started with some very basic principles and seemed to be building upon it self quite logically until about half way through there was a sudden lost of congruence, which was probably more an effect of the professors failure to teach the book out of order and amend his own material. It just seemed like a hodgepodge of loosely related concepts in an effort to expose the student to as many concepts as possible. It seems quite evident that the majority of community or junior colleges teach their classes this way, they seem hard pressed to force students into intro classes and prerequisites under the false claim that they are doing so in the students best interest to set them up for success rather than failure once they transfer. In reality they are more concerned about how they are perceived by higher institutions since these transfer students are a direct reflection of the JC (junior college) system since this affects funding and the air of prestige or ranking of the corresponding JC.
Long story short I felt that the class was a sad waste of 16 weeks and I would have been better served testing out of it and paying substantially more to take the equivalent class at UCSD. I would have enjoyed the higher emphasis on quantitative analysis and conceptualization than the associates tech school “get you into the work force as soon as possible” feel of the JC lecture and lab.
